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Potato Fritters

Fried batter of baked potato flesh, flour, eggs, and spices, dusted with powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Sherry and vanilla work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 506 recipes. Both carry piperonal, which smells bitter, coconut. The science ↓

Potato Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Bake the potatoes until soft, then scoop out the floury part.

  2. In a bowl, beat the floury potato flesh with cream, sherry or brandy, sugar, lemon juice, flavoring, and the beaten egg yolks.

  3. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff, then fold them into the potato mixture until smooth.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat lard or dripping in a frying pan until hot.

  2. Drop large spoonfuls of the mixture into the hot fat, frying 2-3 at a time while keeping them apart.

  3. Fry until nicely browned, about 5-7 minutes, then drain on blotting paper.

  4. Serve piled high on a white napkin, dusted with powdered sugar, and with wine sauce on the side.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Sherry + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together506 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

  2. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Potato + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,230 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Lemon + vanillatop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,961 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Floury potato flesh gives the fritters their light, soft body and bulk.
Egg yolks
Enrich the mixture and add richness and colour to the fritter interior.
Egg whites
Whipped until stiff and folded in, they lighten the batter and help it puff while frying.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the interior tender.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the outside brown in the hot fat.

The step that matters

Frying the spoonfuls apart in hot fat. Fat must be hot enough to set the outside quickly; if it is too cool, the fritters absorb grease and turn heavy. Crowding them lowers the fat temperature and makes them stick together, so frying in small batches keeps them crisp and separate.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, sherry, sugar, lemon, vanilla, egg):

  1. Arrowrootfits better
  2. Sweet potatofits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, sherry, sugar, lemon, vanilla, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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